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Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Was Mr. Jeff Bezos a
visionary, is he still is, and will he remain to be such?

Sometimes my encounter with Amazon (or Whole Foods) prompts me
to express my view to Mr. Bezos, even though he will never read it.

This is the latest one.

Hi Mr. Bezos (if this letter gets to you),

1. Recently I got some stuff from Amazon - for free (!).

I ordered honey, and got a different one. I tried to return it,
but it was not possible. Amazon chat offered me a replacement or a refund – I
chose a replacement, and Amazon again sent me the wrong one. But! I Got it for
free! And, I also liked this type. So, I ordered again, got a wrong one again,
and this time when in the chat I sent the pictures to show the difference, and
then I requested a refund, and kept the item. Then I posted on Twitter my
promise that I will do it every day (maybe on Facebook, too). Of course, I
didn’t do it every day, but I did it four more times. I made a video, and
another one, I sent a link to the Amazon. And eventually I finally got the
right item! My time for free stuff from Amazon is over. But I still think you
owe me for uncovering a hole in the Amazon system and forcing the large and
inertial system to finally fix it (could have been a wrong listing, a wrong
description in the storage, a wrong person in the storage, a wrong manager in
at least two departments).

So, you are welcome.

Appendix: I added this part about three weeks later. I order my item again. I though Amazon would have learned. Turned out Amazon have already forgotten the lesson. I got - again - the same wrong item. So I made a video: https://youtu.be/mGrGwmV0cQU

Names are similar, but clearly are different items. They are listed as different items. But it looks like someone at Amazon does not know that. After another long chat that started from a person with an Indian name and then switched to a person with an English name I was finally told that Amazon will open an investigation. It's about time!2. My mother is old and has a very poor vision, we cannot find
good glasses for her to read. But she can see letters in a large font. Why would
Amazon not devise a TV-box, could have been an Alexa or a Kindle as well – BUT
– with a physical and simple remote control – my mother will not learn how to
use a touch screen or how to command. The remote needs to have only four sets
of buttons:

On. Off.

Zoom in. Zoom out.

Scroll up. Scroll down.

Select. Go back.

This will give my mother an opportunity to read from a large TV
screen.

And other seniors will benefit, too.

As well as children who like using screens from the very little
age, but do not like reading books (and I could think of more categories of
users).

3. You said in your interview (where you mentioned your email)
that you think far ahead.

The same reason that no one said anything about the King’s dress (i.e. people just decided to think so). It
took a kid to point “The King is naked!” Albert Einstein was without a doubt a
genius, one of the smartest humans of all time. But no one would ask Albert Einstein for a
business advice.Flip the side, and
everyone thinks that a successful businessman is a genius. The hypnosis of
MONEY! What does it mean
to be smart? Who is smarter: Einstein or Bezos? Newton or Zuckerberg, Musk,
Gates? If you answer honestly, the next step is to accept that one does not
have to be a genius in order to create and run a successful business. If you played
the game of chess, you would know that the
winner is the one who makes less mistakes. Same in business. Everyone
starts something, but those who make less mistakes get eventually noticed. In the case of Mr. Bezos (and many other well-known white businessmen): good
family, good education, Wall-Street experience, and - of course - boldness, taking
a risk (for starters, just to start a start-up), and being persuasive (#1 and 2 and 3 professional quality of a businessman). Multiply by a good luck. Subtract missteps (“Fire
phone”). Add learning from mistakes (Alexa). And having good genetics - which
provided with a good brain - the physiological basis of thinking and effective learning.

Then I also dug up some old drafts and added to the post make it longer.

*****

I don’t know about you, but since the Whole
Foods accusation by the Amazon my satisfaction with my shopping experience
dropped by about 20 %.

For example (just one of many),
I have two Whole Foods nearby, and for two days in a row neither had such an simple product as organic rolled oatmeal flakes. The topinambur (a.k.a.
sunchoke, item #4791) is a product which is very important for me, but it is absent more often then present, and when it is present it is more often soft than hard (which makes it useless).

Is Mr. Jeff
Bezos losing his Midas touch? Or was he not so visionary in the first place?

Don’t get me
wrong, I have a deep respect to Mr. Bezos; he just simply represents a very
good “target” for any business-related discussion.

For example,
did he already know in 1994 that years later he would establish Amazon Prime,
Amazon Studios, etc., etc.? Or he was just growing one step at the time: “OK,
this is done, let’s think, what can we do now?” (exactly what I tell my students to do when they need to solve a problem and get stuck - ask yourself "what can I do NOW?")

And if he was
growing one step at the time, does it mean he was not a visionary, or it means
that his vision has also been evolving together with him, or maybe it means
something else?

When he
issued IPO and became a billionaire, how much of that is due to his own talent,
how much of that is due to his own efforts, and how much of that due to other
factors, like good timing, good luck, good genes, good family, good schools,
greed?

The latter –
greed – is related to the actions of other people - those people who have decided
(or helped to decide) how many stocks to print, what price to set, and who and
how much would also profit from the mere fact of a stock offering.

There is no
way to measure the exact percentage of the role of each factor in the final
worth of a person.

The history of mankind
knows many large and even huge empires. They all are gone. They all are gone
due to the same reason - the growth of an empire has led to such the size that
the empire has become unmanageable. The small fluctuation in social conditions,
management stiles, territorial goals, etc. have been growing to the level when
the system could not sustain its whole any more. If Mr. Bezos has an ability to
envision things far ahead, he should see that similar process started happening
within his empire. The number one indicator is the loss of the grip on the
quality control of the products and processes. As an Amazon member from 2003, I
see the growing number of examples when a U.S. merchant sells items which are far from the description. Of course, I
have no troubles with returning the items, but I would prefer not wasting my
time on that. The largest empires in the history of the mankind did not survive
their growth. It remains to be seen if the Amazon empire will be able to do
better. BTW: it is happening with all retailers, not just Amazon: https://youtu.be/sK-tf5ROyds Appendix IIfrom 09/24/2018

Mr. Jeff Bezos, please, start Amazon program "resell your old book" (like cars or phones) This is how it should work. 1. I buy a new book, and (obviously) read it. 2. I buy a new new book; and click" resell my old book" (the price is set by Amazon) 3. I receive the new new book, place the old one in the same box, and send it back (via Amazon Locker from Whole Foods) 4. Amazon gets it, pays me. Appendix IIIfrom 11/09/2018Since the first publication of this post I wrote a couple of more pieces on the character of business people.The latest one "Is The Cat Wroth Be Saved? or A Curios Case of a Risky Entrepreneur". In part I touched how much luck plays the role in the success of a person. The best luck one can get is growing up in a nice family and attending a nice school. The next depends greatly on meeting the right people. I like to say "you can be the strongest magnet, but if you are surrounded by wood, you cannot attract much of attention".